Jurgen Klinsmann's team took maximum points from their most recent round of World Cup qualifiers. Photograph: JOE KLAMAR/AFP/Getty Images

The numbers don't lie

Let's start with a rather banal but crucial fact which overshadows everything else we have to say about the fourth, fifth and sixth games of the USA's ten game Hex qualifying campaign:

The USA took nine points from those three games and are top of the standings.

We can talk about the manner in which they did it — the individual winners and losers in the race for first team spots, and the breakout players (step forward Mr Altidore). We can talk about the isolated moments that assumed significance in retrospect, and there's value in those snapshots. But the fact is that without the US getting the job done, in whatever manner they needed to, we'd be talking about "nervous summers" and maybe revisiting the "does Klinsmann control his squad?" conversations.

Jozy Altidore has had an unequivocally successful season

Jozy Altidore's season finally ended in Utah, and what might have gone down as a baffling study in contrasts turned into an unqualified success during what was the final sequence of games in a long season for the European players in the squad, including Altidore. Altidore famously came into camp as an enigma - a scoring machine in the Eredivisie who couldn't get a goal at international level and repeatedly looked like an isolated figure in his frequently curtailed appearances under Klinsmann. Indeed it wasn't so long ago Klinsmann was publicly questioning his attitude, yet as the squad leaves Salt Lake he must be questioning what he'd have done without him.

From finally breaking his two year drought in the friendly against Germany (which lest we forget came on the back of a worryingly easy romp of a win for Belgium in the first friendly of this five game sequence), Altidore's goals turned out to be worth 7 of the 9 points the US amassed in their surge to the top of the standings. But as we noted in the reaction to the Panama game, his threat is now more integrated into the US approach play than the times over the past couple of years where he wandered around up front isolated and frustrated — trapped in a vicious cycle of limited supply and wasted opportunities.

There were echoes of that era in the first half against Honduras as the US allowed the visitors to narrow the play in the first half and ended up sending balls over the top more in hope than expectation. But even in the frustration that resulted there were signs of the change in mentality and by the second half, Eddie Johnson's occasional forays into space opened up by defenders guarding Altidore had evolved into the type of movement that saw Zusi and Fabian Johnson combine to set up Altidore's goal.

There was a moment half way through the second half where Altidore turned away from goal, darted forward, then attempted an audacious backheel to set up a team mate. It didn't quite come off, but he had the confidence to attempt it, and perhaps just as crucially the mandate and belief from his coach and a finally-convinced fan base to try this sort of inventiveness. On this form he won't have wanted the season to end. It has though — and it's been a good one.

The US still thrive on width

After "running" and "working hard" we might want to add a third quality of successful USA teams: "width"

It's always pretty apparent what teams are going to do in road games against the US in competitions like this. They're going to bunker with men behind the ball and try to frustrate the hosts, and possibly play the odds that they'll get to take advantage of one of the big defensive errors the US seem to be good (bad?) for every game. Facing this sort of tactic, the US can become hesitant — concentrating more on retaining possession than moving the ball forward, and being reluctant to get their full backs forward. When that happens, Michael Bradley for example, will keep boring forward and drawing players to him, but with no wide outlet for him to slip the ball to as he enters the final third the defenders aren't forced into difficult decisions when Dempsey makes his runs into the box, or Altidore tries to draw a center back. The angles just aren't there.

Witness the progress in the second half, as Zusi and Fabian Johnson became more integrated with the rest of the team, including Altidore, Bradley and Dempsey, and the lateral movement of the US team began to open up crucial pockets of space in the Honduras defense. As Plan B's go it had an illustrious precedent from the previous game with the Johnson ball for Altidore's opener against Panama, and the Dempsey run slashing space open in the box that led to it — and while Johnson's ball to Altidore for his goal against Honduras was less spectacular, it was just as satisfying for being a solution that was arrived at through trial and error.

But watching the US go wide is also, at its best, a thrilling reminder of what this team and US teams before them have historically thrived on — supply from wings, men committed forward (and tracking back), and pace. The fascinating question for this team though, is how that instinct translates within the modern orthodoxy of Klinsmann's 4-2-3-1. It's not as simple as switching to 4-4-2 when the initial set up doesn't work — and that's a good thing. It's about making opponents second guess and prying them open with shifts of angle, speed of attack and just the right blend of patience and a little bit of glee.

The Gold Cup stakes are higher for the players than the coach

Despite the next two tricky games in September, against fellow frontrunners Costa Rica and Mexico, it's getting pretty disingenuous not to be talking about the squad for Brazil at this point. So the results of these three games mean that the Gold Cup in particular becomes a more nuanced affair for USA watchers. There's still time for a player to come from nowhere and make next year's squad, but with Klinsmann's notable hardening of his first team selection in these last few games, those opportunities will be limited. If Jack McInerney for example, gets both the Gold Cup call and takes advantage of it with a good tournament, he could find himself making a breakthrough at the expense of someone like Chris Wondolowski.

The difference between that scenario and one where the US had let points slip in this sequence is that we're now clearly talking about outside shots for a fourth or fifth striker's slot. Realistically that might always have been the case, but we're no longer in the distracting position of the coach hoping Altidore might come good, while giving possible alternatives enough minutes that their inclusion is still meaningful. The second tier of US players is already fairly apparent, and while the likes of Geoff Cameron can count themselves unlucky to be squeezed out by default in the current first team set up, at least he's clearly pencilled in to Klinsmann's plans as a go-to utility player (and he has done well in this role when called on). For MLS players in particular, the Gold Cup represents one of the last clear chances to make a case for a dwindling number of undetermined squad positions.

This is Jurgen Klinsmann's team

That might seem another obvious statement, but it's a perspective that's rather slipped into focus over the past month.

Jurgen Klinsmann's 2006 German World Cup team were a young side who arrived in the home country tournament under a barrage of criticism for the underwhelming lead up to the tournament, doubts about Klinsmann's tactical acumen and man management and the overly ambitious attempt to transform the "German way" of play. After the team's semi-final exit and once the euphoria of an exciting young side's run had died down, some of the criticisms still remained, but many had been at the very least toned down by the acknowledgment that Klinsmann (and Low) had built an exuberant team timed to peak at just the right time, and that also escaped the weight of another time — an increasingly dogmatic German footballing tradition and system.

In February, after the USA's poor start in the Hex, similar concerns were being raised about Klinsmann's USA team. The system was under attack, the plethora of players tried out in various positions was under attack, and the man management and tactical acumen (or ability to communicate tactics at least) was being privately and publicly questioned within and without the camp.

But the ship steadied, results improved, the first choice team began to become clear, and a side that had looked baffled by each other, let alone their coach, in their opening game in Honduras, were able to come full circle and meet the same opponents on US soil and find their way through as a definite team. They may not be a perfect team (the fundamental defensive errors remain a worry; there can still be something "dutiful" about the style with which they open games), but the fact that there's a strategy and vision at work is becoming more apparent every time we stop to take a macro look at how they're doing. And if they're not the finished article yet, they don't have to be...yet.